Cole v. Housing Authority of City of Newport

• Decision Date: 16 April 1970
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 4265.
• Citation: 312 F. Supp. 692
• Parties: Catherine COLE et al. v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF NEWPORT et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

312 F. Supp. 692

Catherine COLE et al. v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF NEWPORT et al.

Civ. A. No. 4265.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

April 16, 1970.

Barry A. Fisher, and Joseph F. Dugan, of Rhode Island Legal Services, Inc., Providence, R. I., for plaintiffs.

Joseph J. Nicholson, Newport Housing Authority, Newport, R. I., for defendants.

OPINION

PETTINE, District Judge.

This is a civil rights suit authorized by 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in which the plaintiffs seek, on behalf of themselves and the class they represent, declaratory and injunctive relief against a two-year durational residency requirement for admission to federally financed public housing. Newport Housing Authority Regulations § 11(A) (4) (e) (Appendix A). Jurisdiction is properly grounded upon 28 U.S.C. § 1343.¹

The court finds that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that plaintiffs are entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief as a matter of law. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

The Facts

Catherine Cole is an adult citizen of the United States and has resided continuously within the City of Newport since September of 1969 when she arrived from Jamestown, Rhode Island. Barbara Jean Goodson is an adult citizen of the United States and has resided continuously within the City of Newport since May, 1969 when she arrived from New York City, New York.²

Defendant Housing Authority of the City of Newport is a public corporation which is a corporative governmental agency organized under the Constitution and laws of the State of Rhode Island, having its executive offices at 1 Park Holm, Newport. Within the City of Newport, defendant owns and operates public housing projects financed by the United States Government and the City of Newport. Defendants Robert C. Bell, Thomas Perrotti, John J. Flynn, Charles T. Kaull, and Albert A. Fournier are members of the Board of Commissioners of the defendant Housing Authority, and are charged by the laws of the State of Rhode Island, Housing Authorities Law, Rhode Island General Laws 45-25 et seq., with the responsibility for the operation of the defendant Housing Authority, including the promulgation of rules and regulations. Defendant William J. Donovan is Secretary of the defendant Housing Authority.

Plaintiff Catherine Cole moved to the City of Newport from Jamestown, Rhode Island in September of 1969. She has lived in Newport continuously since that date and intends to remain there permanently. Plaintiff Cole was born in Maryland June 15, 1946, and moved to Jamestown, Rhode Island approximately three months later. She lived in Jamestown continuously until December, 1967 when she moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts to work in the Neighborhood Youth Corps Program. After three months she returned to live with her mother in Jamestown where she remained until June, 1967 when she moved in with a girlfriend in Newport and worked at the Naval Enlisted Men's Mess Hall. In April, 1968, she moved back to Jamestown in order to have her mother help care for her newborn child. She remained in Jamestown until September, 1969, when she rented her present apartment in Newport. Plaintiff Cole is unmarried and brought her two minor children, ages 6 months and 1½ years, with her to Newport. The three-member family lives in a two-room apartment converted from a store front for which plaintiff pays $110 a month rent. Plaintiff's income consists solely of $197.50 a month from Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Thus, over 55% of her total income goes for rent; were she in public housing rent would equal approximately 25% of income, or about $45.00.³ After payment, plaintiff Cole is left with only approximately $87.50 a month to feed and clothe herself and her two infant children. This amount does not meet the $97.50 that is the very minimum budgeted needs suggested by the Rhode Island Department of Social Welfare.⁴ Excessive rent, substandard, and socially undesirable living conditions led plaintiff to attempt to apply for public housing in November of 1968. She was told that her mailed application had not been received and that no housing was then available. In October, 1969, plaintiff with the assistance of New Visions for Newport personnel mailed a second application to defendant Housing Authority. Again the fact of receipt was denied. On November 7, 1969 plaintiff again submitted an application which was rejected on grounds of failure to satisfy the two-years residency requirement. On or about November 14, 1969, an appeal before the Board of Tenant Affairs was applied for. The Board met on November 25, 1969, and voted unanimously to uphold the Newport Housing Authority's decision. See Appendix B.

Plaintiff Barbara Jean Goodson and her two children, ages two and three, moved to the City of Newport from New York City, New York in May, 1969. She has lived in Newport continuously since that date and intends to remain there permanently. Her income consists solely of $198 per month that she receives from Public Assistance and she currently sublets an apartment from a friend for $60 per month. Plaintiff Goodson was born in New York City December 23, 1939. She lived there until 1954 when she was divorced and moved to Washington, D.C. where her grandmother resided. She returned to New York in 1968 and in May, 1969, moved to Newport, where her mother lives in Public Housing. The move to Newport was made so that mother and daughter could aid each other and together help raise the plaintiff's two children. Overcrowded, substandard, and socially undesirable living conditions led plaintiff Goodson to apply for Newport Public Housing in June 1969. The application was rejected on grounds of failing to satisfy the two year residency requirement. She applied again on or about December 29, 1969, but again was told that she would not be admitted until the residency requirement was met.

Plaintiffs are eligible for public housing on all other grounds of eligibility except that they have not resided within the City of Newport for at least two years.

As a result of the refusal by defendants to consider further plaintiffs' applications for public housing, plaintiffs and each of them are denied present places on the waiting list for accommodations.

Legal Discussion

The requirement established by § 11 (A) (4) (e) of the regulations of the Newport Housing Authority that applicants for public housing be resident in Newport for two years, at least, immediately prior to application is attacked as being violative of the statutory scheme and as being violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

42 U.S.C. § 1401 establishes the policy objectives of the federal low-rent housing laws. Additionally, § 1401 states the general policy to permit maximum authority to local agencies in the administration of low-rent housing. Certainly, § 1401 seeks to preserve broad powers of control, consistent with the statute, in local authorities in order to carry out cooperative federalism, one of the underlying philosophies of the statute. However, the eligibility requirements referred to in § 1401 most probably include those specifically defined in § 1402(1). Nowhere in the act is it indicated that residency requirements of a durational sort are permissible means of "effecting economies." Nowhere in the considerable legislative history of the federal housing laws are durational residency requirements even mentioned. S. 1685, 75th Congress, 1st Sess. (1937); S. 2654, 86th Congress, 1st Sess. (1959); S. 57, 86th Congress, 1st Sess. (1959) and S. 4035, 85th Congress, 2nd Sess. (1958); S. 2654, see Senate Report # 924, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959), U.S.Code & Admin.News, p. 2844; S. 57, See Senate Report, # 41, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. and House Report Currency; 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959); S. 4035, See Senate Report # 1732, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958) and House Report # 2539 House Committee on Banking and Currency; 86th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958); S. 1685 Reports on S. 1685: Senate Report # 933, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. House Report § 1545, 75th Congress, 1st Sess. (1937). Given this silence and the indisputable fact that residency requirements frustrate the purposes of the Act by denying otherwise qualified low-income persons access to public housing and by lessening applicant pressure and thereby lessening pressure to clear slums and build still further public housing, the court is persuaded that the regulation must be declared violative of the statute. As the brief of plaintiffs makes clear:

"* * * the establishment of a durational residency test for admission to public housing does not in any way further the objectives of the federal-state program, that objective being to provide shelter to families who are in need. The residency requirement simply denies certain families, who may be in critical need, the opportunity to apply on a ground which has no possible relationship to the urgency of need for public housing, contrary to the stated purposes of the legislation.

In fact, the present regulation of the Housing Authority in this particular tends to undercut one of the major purposes of federal housing legislation. The extended waiting period assures that indigents moving into the Newport metropolitan area will have to submit to inadequate or over-priced housing conditions upon their arrival in the city and for some time thereafter. The residency requirement thus creates a ready market for the inferior products of slumlords.

Since one of the major purposes of Congressional action in the field of housing has always been slum clearance and urban renewal, * * * by guaranteeing that at least some families must live in the slums for many months after arrival in Newport, the NHA is in effect supporting the continued existence of substandard housing in the city."

Cf....